We must have spent an hour slowing looking at our friend Christopher Baker‘s beautiful online portfolios. We found ourselves culling images with a single theme: natural textiles used in original absolutely doable ways, no uptight styling here. Just a fine trove of ideas.
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We’ve written extensively about our usual practice of deconstructing and arranging overwrought hotel rooms. We’ve encountered SO many that were over decorated, stuffy, busy, that we stopped loving staying in hotels. Until we saw photos of Hotel Henriette in Paris, which breaks the mould every which way and gave us a trove of doable ideas for…
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Whenever I can’t get a stubborn stain out of a linen napkin, tablecloth or a blouse, I do what my Greek great-grandmother did: I squeeze lemon juice onto the stain and put it directly in the sun. When I lived in a south-facing apartment with no outdoor space, I’d open the window and rig ways to…
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At Carnegie Mellon University’s yearly Lunar Gala Fashion Show, Industrial Designer Miriam Buchwald showcased COCOON, her line of dresses made totally of hot glue. She didn’t hot glue fabric. She MADE the textiles out of hot-glue, which has expanded our view of hot glue’s possibility greatly, way beyond crafty Martha Stewart.
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We recently stumbled across a couple of images from Decoracion, which features the work of Spanish interior designer Jaime Parladé. We love Parladé’s use of the elements of a living room: a cotton rug, a shelf of objects, a painting, unexpected tiles, a basket trunk, to give a bathroom a more UNbathroom like feel. Of all the elements in the…
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When we looked at images of the COS Lightweight Backpack online and read the product description we thought PERFECT. Just what we’re looking for: Made from a lightweight technical fabric, this cotton-lined backpack has an all-over print and fastens using a magnet and wide drawstring. Multi-functional, it can also be worn as a tote bag…
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Since when is it hip, slick and cool to lie in bed and stare at your clothes and shoe racks––no matter how neatly organized––when you’re rustling up romance? I’m talking about a very particular theme of design porn these days: highly-styled, out-in-the-open clothes racks that make me wonder: What would happen in this uber-neuter scheme if…
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We stumbled on these HUGE dish towels and ordered a set to check out, having learned the hard way that the real thing is often way different than pictures. We washed them and…they are great, 100% cotton, wonderful-looking and useful for many things.
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The quest for a restful night’s sleep can feel like an impossible dream, particularly for urban apartment dwellers or those who share tight living quarters and a noisy town. How to shut off the world – and the kitchen – to grab some privacy and nourishing shut-eye to help maintain emotional and mental balance, can be an…
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Just as we’re on the verge of buying a sewing machine so we can actually MAKE some of the things we imagine, we’ve been seeing images of beautiful patchwork rugs made out of vintage kilim remnants. Wondering if it would be possible to DIY them ourselves, we went hunting for kilim remnants.
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Photographer Virginia del Giudice has both a wonderful eye AND, we discovered, a fine hand with fabrics. Witness her beautiful “fix” of some permanently-stained fabric. It reminds us of kintsugi, the artful repair of damaged things.
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Spotted at Ikea’s Blog Livet Hemma, this a swell little idea for jazzing up a tabletop: stripe-on-stripe table cloths created with swathes of fabric. via Livet Hemma
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Have a swell unique design you’d like to fashion into a one-of-a-kind gift? Print All Over Me will print your custom design — drawings, collages, photographs, signs — onto white tee-shirts, baseball hats, tote bags, pillows, scarfs or sweatpants. Print All Over Me also offers seasonal editions of different objects for you to print all over. In addition…
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Over the holidays Ellen Silverman gave a dinner party for 14 and wanted a special napkin that guests could take away with them to remember the event. She found some inexpensive but wonderfully stylish big red striped cotton dish towels that a friend machine-embroidered with a pretty design. They were in perfect keeping with the wonderful bistro-ish…
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We found a number of good ideas in this beautiful photograph by Christopher Baker of a quirky fabric room that makes us want to hang out.
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Scrim-like nature murals and flower cut-outs used to disguise construction sites have a number of applications inside a home.
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I frequently do Skype consultations with people who need clever, inexpensive fixes for their spaces and are having difficulty envisioning possibilities. Often, they are only able to describe the change in feeling that they’d like to achieve. In the many spaces I’ve looked at, I’ve seen a common problem: there is a lot of visual…
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Just about everyone we know wants to cut back on using plastic wrap and ziplock bags but are having a hard time actually doing it. One way is with clever Abeego food storage sheets: cotton sheets that are coated with pure beeswax, jojoba oil and tree resin, known for their preservative properties. The sheets are…
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In many parts of the world that which is old and imperfect is more highly cherished and valued than that which is new. Brand new Turkish rugs are often abraded before selling, their colors softened by dealers eager to increase their price by having them appear imperfect, used, showing their history. In Persian, they call…
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These very beautiful cloth-draped sofas Max Zambelli teach an essential lesson: ordinary raw materials, artfully arranged, can easily outdo “done”. Zambelli has tucked and smoothed in just the right places, leaving the rest to fall as it may. It’s a chic play on drop cloth covered sofas. Of course, it has much to do with the shape…
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